The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

Every country has the government it deserves.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.